Importing Word text - help please

[Viper x]

I have read in other threads here that the most stable way to import word text into 10.5 is to copy and paste as picture, if I just do copy and paste the formatting is a mess as others have said.

I have managed to copy and paste as a picture some Word text and it comes in very well, except.....

When I paste it into a A1 drawing that has a scale of 1:200 the small piece of text is huge, even bigger the the entire drawing

And as it has come in as a picture it can not be edited in VW

So how do I get the scale of the text correct before I import it as a picture ?

I have made it the smallest font in Word but that still massive.

I am no expert at VW so what is the trick please ?

Thanks for any help

Viper

[ 06-02-2004, 03:49 AM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[Donald Wardlaw]

In my experience, after import you need to set the font size to that desired, and also set the width of the text box (via OIP) to the width in inches desired.

Best,

Donald

[Viper x]

How can you set the font size when the imported text is not able to be edited ?

Could you explain OIP please and what is the standard size in inches ?

Thanks very much

[ 06-02-2004, 10:26 AM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[Guest]

Resize the shape of the picture object by using the 2d selection tool. Resize the block the same way you'd resize any other 2d object.

You may also want to paste the text onto a layer that is 1:1 and then move the picture to the desired layer, which will scale the text down.

[Viper x]

Thanks Katie I will try that.

[bclydeb]

Viper x

quote:

---

Originally posted by Viper x:

How can you set the font size when the imported text is not able to be edited ?

Could you explain OIP please and what is the standard size in inches ?

Thanks very much

---

Katie's suggestion for scaling the picture is good.

Regarding text file imports and retaining formatting, at least simple tabbed formatting, is to use one of the clumsy but useful monospaced fonts to compose the text and import it. Most of us shun "American Typewriter", "Courier" or other monospaced fonts because they are not "lovely". after the text is in - resize the text block width to where the original line width is preserved.

Finally - your question regarding OIP. OIP stands for the Object Info Palette. Shorthand acronyms and similar stuff like this is common parlance amongst the forum connouseurs and cognoscenti.javascript:void(0)

[Viper x]

I am making the text in simple Courier font as suggested > copying > pasting as a picture into a file 1:1 > it goes in very big but the text is good > I then shrink the symbol by dragging it from the top dot of the four highlights > and it resizes very close but some of the words split mid word and as I can not edit it I am therefore stuck again ?

Any ideas please

[ 06-02-2004, 07:14 PM: Message edited by: Viper x ]

[bclydeb]

Viper x

quote:

---

Originally posted by Viper x:

I am making the text in simple Courier font as suggested > copying > pasting as a picture into a file 1:1 > it goes in very big but the text is good > I then shrink the symbol by dragging it from the top dot of the four highlights > and it resizes very close but some of the words split mid word and as I can not edit it I am therefore stuck again ?

Any ideas please

---

SInce you are effectively scaling a picture - try Tools>Scale Object?> and enter your calculated percentage for the desired reduction as a decimal (.72 for example) to scale down the image uniformly. Make sure the box for symmetrical scaling is checked.

This should scale the picture block without crumbling anything.

[Viper x]

I got close but I had to scale it by .20 to get it anywhere near the size and as a result the text is still shaky, some letters have spread and the ends of the sentances have lost a letter here or there.

So I am having to re-type it all again, not funny I can tell you

Please improve the interface between the most popular word processing software, ie MS WORD and VW please.

Thanks for all the help

Viper x

[jnr]

Ahh yes, one of my pet peeves with this software (which continues to be ignored). (Brought to you by: "The more bells and whistles and less stability school of software develepment"). How about either giving the built-in text editor some real chops (what are those silly tabs anyway?) or suck it up and go to ODBC compatibility (or something like it-go look at Adobe InDesign or Archicad 7). Importing text (specifications) as images which, when they need to be edited, have to be revised and re-mported, is getting really old and artifically inflates file sizes (improving bmp compression in 11 is like putting a finger in leak in the dam while the dam is overflowing).

[Kevin]

Have you tried to export your text from Word in a text format or rich text format? You can then try a copy and paste with that instead of the native Word format.

[Petri]

I don't understand this discussion. When I copy and paste text from Word, I even get fonts correctly so I'm not quite sure why one would want to do it as PICT - unless it is a table or very complex tab-formatting. And then, a text-only PICT is, AFAK, not a bitmap image: letters stay as letters (well, on the Mac at least) and have full resolution - and the file size does not get inflated.

Am I missing something?

[Viper x]

Petri when I cut and paste from Word the text comes in all seperated and unusable, when I paste from Word and paste as a picture it comes in bigger than the ENTIRE A1 document ! and when I scale it down it is still poor quality and unusable and this happens with simple Courier text nothing complicated.

Thanks for the suggestions Kevin I will give it a try, but for this drawing I will have to go and let the bleeding stop from all the re-typing

[Petri]

Strange. When I copy & paste from Word, I get perfectly editable text.

[G-Pang]

Me too...

I think it is depends on what OS / system has been use.

On Mac OS X , I can simply copy and paste the text from Word.

On MS Windows... I'm not sure.

[G-Pang]

Viper X "and when I scale it down it is still poor quality"

If U try to paste as a picture.. some times it come with unacceptable quality.

The trick is... Zoom IN as close as you can.

eg: 5 mm to fit your screen, then paste as picture....Zoom to fit new object and U will get better quality image.

[Viper x]

I am on Windows XP pro and it is messy.

[G-Pang]

There are 2 ways to paste text into VW

1 ? Paste under Selection command / as 1 entity

2 ? Paste into editing text.

U should try those 2 and will notice the deference.

[ 06-06-2004, 11:31 PM: Message edited by: G-Pang ]

[jnr]

This is a mac/PC thing and a very weak link in the software. You can cut and past text between applications on the mac and it will appear as advertised. On the PC, in Vectorworks, it comes in as a bitmap. Pasting into text, and it loses its formatting. Since Microsoft is not about to change its ways, it implies NNA should opt for a platform neutral approach instead of the current discrimination against the PC OS. In the past this has worked the other way as well, as the text editor in 10 (I believe) had to be dumbed down in order to work on the mac. In the meantime, many (1/2 of sales?) are left with an ineffective and archaic method of text importation on top of a lousy text formating interface within the application. Again, wouldn't it be nice to make what already exists within the code to work effectively than adding yet more bells and whistles, which, based on the track record of 9 and 10, is often defective?

[propstuff]

quote:

---

Originally posted by jnr:

This is a mac/PC thing

---

I don't think it's that simple. Here are my results;

My MacTiBk; doing a simple cut and paste, all text comes in huge and has to have text size reset with Text>Size. All formatting is lost and every carriage return and tab is a separarte text block.

Pasting into a textblock as GPang notes; all formatting and sizes correctly retained.

IBM P3 laptop;Win2K, VW10.1 Demo: simple cut and paste; formatting retained.

Dell P4, XP Pro, VW10.1: Simple cut and paste;

Text comes in right size with formatting (position on screen), but each line is a sepatate text block.

Pasting into a text block; everything comes in properly: Tabs, bolds, sizes; the lot.

So frankly VW seems to do a better job of importing into XP than it does into MacOS10.

You just have to paste into a Text block.

Reading the manual is instructive;

VW10 Manual, p6-5, "Pasting Text", 2nd Para